FURIOUS!!!!

Furious~ 1984, Tim Everitt, Tom Sartori, USA

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DAMN. Furious has got to be one the most extreme WTF films I’ve ever seen. I have no idea what sort of trama the human brain would need to have endured in order for it to properly process this film’s plot, if it even has one. This this is madly, wildly incoherent.

THE PLOT~ Honestly, I couldn’t tell you. The caption on the DVD case reads: “KARATE HEROES FIGHT ALIENS FOR CONTROL OF THE ASTRAL PLANE.”  Really? Alright. I really didn’t get that out of this, but okay. That’s what it’s about, I guess. Not sure when that happens, but there ya have it.

It’s horribly made, of course, but we have bigger fish to fry. The real story here is that Furious presents you with the most abstract form of narrative ever, and it’s not deliberate. Don’t confuse whatever the fuck is going on here with the intentional surrealism seen in films like El Topo or Eraserhead, Furious is just straight nonsense, and it happened because some people just aren’t cut out for film making. The truth hurts.

Furious_PosterNo one really acts in this movie. They’re just on camera sometimes. There’s a lot of karate, but the story operates on its own internal system of logic, which no living human can decode. There’s almost no dialogue at all, and when there is, it’s often a short phrases, which are then repeated over and over, about a thousand times. For instance, at one point, Master Chan whispers the words “Simon…. Go home.”…  For like, an hour. Once would have been enough, but no… In a movie where almost nothing is said, we get “Simon… Go home.” about one hundred and fifty times. And what is happening while Master Chan repeats the shit out of his line, you ask? Well, Simon stands silent on a beach, looking out to sea, while Master Chan slowly gets further and further away from him, even though he doesn’t actually move. Yeah! Furious is FULL of stuff just like that. This film had to have been directed by people uniquely incapable of understanding just when exactly they had effectively communicated an idea to their audience. The result is that 97% of the movie is so under-explained that there’s literally no logic holding the plot together at all, and the remaining 3% is just relentlessly hammered into your head without mercy. It’s like absolutely nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Want another example? Happy to oblige! Later on in the film, Simon decides to scope out the bad guy’s base of operations, which appears to be an office building located in the middle of nowhere. Upon arrival, he finds a hiding spot near the main entrance, and proceeds to case the joint (some of this is speculation). As he watches the front door, which is flanked by two completely motionless guards, Simon witnesses a man slowly sneak out, walk in a straight line away from the building, and disappear off screen, all the while holding a, white, clucking chicken underneath his right arm…

Okay?

Then, this exact thing happens again, less than a minute later. Exactly the same thing. And then again. It happens AGAIN, SEVERAL TIMES. Why!?!? What the fuck is going on!?!? Are we supposed to understand this?!?! Is this a glitch in the Matrix?!? Is it a glitch in my own brain!?! Is Furious even a real movie!??!

Untitled-3Fuzzy, because the entire movie is.

So, having just Deja Vu’ed his ass off with the broad-daylight chicken bandit for a solid five minutes, Simon then proceeds to grappling hook his way into the building, where he witnesses even more chicken-related madness. Apparently, the bad guys in Furious are turning people into chickens. Why, I don’t know, but that’s what they’re doing, and in order to accomplish this, they have a wizard with a rad mustache blast their prisoners with fireballs, which, seemingly, transform his victims into chickens. I guess we’re supposed to see this and somehow connect it with the chicken related insanity we saw moments earlier, but please excuse me if I feel like this whole thing could warrant further explanation.

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A few scenes later, Simon ends up locked in a mystical Kung Fu battle with this mustachioed wizard man, and we learn that actually, he can just shoot chickens out of his fingertips, too. That’s just part of his fighting style, blasting chickens at people. So, then we’re forced to rethink the earlier scene; was he really turning people into chickens, or was he just shooting them with chickens, and when the chickens hit you, you disappear? Or maybe can he turn you into a chicken AND shoot chickens out of his fingers? Could be both? It’s unclear! Everything is unclear! What the hell is happening?!?! Seconds later, the wizard has one of this fireballs ricocheted at him, and he’s transformed into… a pig! Why a pig? Why not a chicken? Why anything?!  And these are the types of questions that Furious forces to you ask yourself, and if you want any kind of explanation, well… You can just fucking forget about it.

This is the experience that Furious provides, and these are but a few examples. The whole damn movie offers a most bountiful supply of nonsense, and how that makes you feel is really sort of up to you. I found myself more frustrated than anything else, but if you’re looking for a unique experience, then I submit Furious for your consideration. I hope it’s understood that this is in no way meant as an endorsement. Furious49

D-

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